Twin Cities Wine Tasting with John Glas
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     Le Cadeau Winery

 

"World Class Pinot Noir"

 

Le Cadeau Winery

Owners Tom and Deb Mortimer

Interview on December 8, 2006

 

Personal Quick Facts

Family:  Tom and Deb Mortimer

Current Residence:  Minnetonka, Minnesota (since 1990)

Educational Background:  Economics Degree from Colgate University

Jobs prior to Le Cadeau:  Small packaging company.  Twenty years in the paper business.

Airline miles per year:  70,000 a year promoting Le Cadeau and his packaging business.

Winery Quick Facts

Le Cadeau is located in Newberg, Oregon on the south end of Parrett Mountain.

Total acreage is 28 with 14 vineyard acres planted.  Some of the land has such steep slopes that planting vines would be extremely difficult.  The current vines were planted over a seven year period in which the forest had to be cleared. 

2002 was the first vintage of Pinot with 465 cases produced. 

2003 produced 630 cases.

2004 produced only 490 cases because of heavy rain.

2004 marked the beginning of Le Cadeau’s Cuvee line.  These three distinct wines are a blend of grapes from different parts of the vineyard and feature varied combinations of Pinot Noir clones.  Each cuvee is produced in consultation with a different winemaker.  Go to:  www.lecadeauvineyard.com for more details about this new venture.

2004 Vintage production, by cuvee:

 

 

Pronouncing Le Cadeau:  LUH KAH’ DOE -- A French expression meaning “The Gift.”

The Story of Le Cadeau

Tom and Deb Mortimer have been residents in Minnetonka, Minnesota since 1990.  Although Minnesota is about the last area in the US you would associate with a successful winery, there are a surprising number of Minnesotans with ties in the wine industry out west.  Like so many new wineries in America, Le Cadeau was not the first business Tom Mortimer owned and operated.  With an Economics Degree from Colgate University and twenty years in the paper business, Tom went to Oregon to build his next legacy.

After acquiring a small packaging business in Dundee, Oregon in the mid-90s, Tom developed an instant love affair with Oregon’s Willamette Valley, an agricultural area located 25-miles southwest of Portland.

In 1997 Tom identified a heavily wooded 28-acre piece of land on the south end of Parrett Mountain near Newberg.  Harry Peterson-Nedry, a good friend and skilled winemaker, told Tom that he believed this property had the right stuff to make really good pinots.  Tom decided the land had potential for growing world class Pinot Noir and pushed forward with his dream.  At the time of purchase, a winery was not in the plans—the plan was to grow and sell the grapes.  However, Tom had been an avid wine collector which ultimately inspired him to create a wine he could call his own.

From 1997 through 1998, the Mortimers cleared the land and consulted with viticulturists and winemakers regarding vineyard development issues such as vine spacing, clone selection, rootstocks, etc.  In 1999 the initial 6-acres of the vineyard were planted.  Due to the extremely rocky soils, there were doubters that this land had any potential for growing grapes.  However, as a wine collector, Tom knew that some of the finest wines in the world are grown in rock-dominated land with very little soil.  The rocky soils encourage the root system to dig deep to find water for survival, and the unfertile, well-drained, soils reduce vine vigor which causes the vines to ripen fruit rather than growing canopy.

Typically, new vine plantings do not produce fruit that is suitable for production of high quality wine.  Most vines need four or five harvests before they are ready to produce juice good enough to bottle.  The first official vintage was 2002-- four hundred and sixty-five cases were produced (which is microscopic compared to corporate wineries such as Mondavi and Columbia Crest).  Although the vines were quite young, the Le Cadeau site demonstrated from the beginning that it is “special”.

Once the wine was produced, the next challenge that faced the Mortimers was finding distributors around the country that believed in their product.  The first vintage is always the hardest to sell; distributors are continually swamped with new wines that are submitted to them by winery owners.   To distinguish a new wine “from the pack”, it can be helpful to get professional wine raters to rate the wine.  If a wine scores in the 90s it sells out right away and every distributor wants to carry the line.  Despite Le Cadeau’s early success with reviews from critics, Tom and Deb had to travel thousands of miles to promote their wine … but the hard work has paid-off.  Le Cadeau is currently distributed in 17-major national markets.

Tom’s love for Burgundy-styled Pinots (wines that are less fruit forward and more tannic) has shaped the style of the wine he produces.  Tannic wines need time to soften but they improve with age when cellared properly.  Thus, most Le Cadeau Pinot Noirs develop further complexity after 2 or 3 years of bottle age.  Tom’s winemakers are always looking for complete ripeness (which assures complex and deep flavors); however, they hope to achieve the ripeness with low sugars and relatively high acid.  It is amazing how picking grapes at different weeks during harvest can transform the taste of the wine down the road. 

Le Cadeau wines from the 02 and 03 vintage sold-out-- word-of-mouth on many Wine Internet forum boards and in wine shops around the country that moved the product.  The “Wine Geeks” of the world pride themselves on finding smaller wineries that create great wines.  Any blog about Tom’s wines always has several people responding and praising the effort.

At our Twin Cities Wine Club Tasting in November the 2003 Le Cadeau Pinot Noir finished second in a blind tasting of 20 US pinots.  The wine is excellent and still available at a few shops around the Twin Cities.  It tied for my favorite wine of the night and here is my review:

2003 Le Cadeau Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

Color:  Dark color

Nose:  cherry

Taste:  nice current and an incredible smoothness to it.

Finish:  Well balanced and lasted around a minute.

Evaluation:  One of the few wines that you could just drink without food and not the most complex wine we had but very appealing to the masses.  93 points

The 2003 bottling received a 95 point score from Wine Enthusiast and was an immediate hit.  It sold-out at the winery very quickly, but the good news is that there is some still available at selected Twin Cities retail locations.  One of Tom’s goals is to sell more wine direct to consumers from his mailing list, but he also strongly believes in selling through distributors to reach high-quality wine shops and restaurants in all parts of the country. 

In 2004 the vision for Le Cadeau changed from one Pinot Noir bottling to three.  The new line consists of three distinct cuvees that are a blend of different Pinot Noir Clones planted in different areas of the Le Cadeau property.  The vintage was on track to yield more wine until a strong August rain storm destroyed one third of the crop.   Unfortunately one major downfall with less available wine is that many regions won’t get as much allocation as in previous years.  At the time of the interview the direct sales from the winery were sold-out.

After talking with Tom the future looks bright for Le Cadeau and much of the Oregon wine scene.  Many of these young vines don’t produce their best fruit until the vines are 15-years old, so the best is yet to come.  I highly encourage you to seek out one of the 2002 or 2003 which are available at the Excelsior Vintage at 952-401-0346.

 

Interview:  John Glas

Written by:  John Glas

2007 Wineglas LLC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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